Yes it's that time again for what has become a regular part of the December Gig scene. It's Ginger Wildheart's annual Birthday Bash now in its 8th year I believe. I missed it last year having decided to go and see Jim Jones and the Righteous Minds Xmas bash instead.
Still, I was more than happy to be asked along to this great show which was raising money for those among you who might feel suicidal at Xmas and need the help of The Samaritans who you can call on 0800116123. Ginger suggested we all chip in £5 each to help them out, if you wish to help as well you can donate at Round Records online and get a download of Ginger's new single Fuck You Brain at the same time. Hurrah!
By the time we arrived the show was already underway and The Dowling Poole were onstage. They are, of course, named after their two main songwriters, Jon Poole and Willie Dowling. The first song I heard was Saving It All For A Saturday: a decent power-poppy number about a night like this of course. It sounded decent but a little generic.
When She Knows She Knows had a good tongue in cheek feel to it and a bit of a glam pop sound which worked pretty well. Adam & Eve kept up the same sound and was well played. But tight as they were, they didn't stick out that much on a bill like of this calibre. Fight, Fight, Fight was the last thing on anyone's mind and had the sort of sound that made in reminiscent of a school playground in about 1975 or so as the kids argued over the Bay City Rollers and Slade even if they sounded more like they were in thrall to mid-60's Beatles.
They finished with the "La La la" sing along of Clean, which got a good part of the crowd singing along to it and again it was pretty Beatle-esque power pop which worked OK. Jon Poole would be returning to play bass again later with one of his other bands, The Wildhearts.
Next on were Hey! Hello! Whose most recent album I may well have hated when I reviewed it earlier in the year but it was time to see if Ginger and the rest of the band were better live than on record and thankfully they certainly were! They opened with the Oh Yeah Filled Swimwear; good and bouncy and had current singer - the well-known Soprano Cat Southall -really working the stage like a cross between Pat Benatar and Jay Aston complete with a great bubble perm.
Burn The Rule Book (Fuck It) was next and allowed Cat to give us her best screams. Damn, has she got the voice for it as Ginger Ai and Toshi did their best to provide the backing vocals. Wow, they sounded good. Even stripped of the studio tricks on the album, the songs came to the fore and worked really well. This Ain't Love sounded like a proper anthem live and had some scorching guitar work as Cat worked the pathos in the lyrics and just got us all going.
Don't Stop Loving The Music kept up the pace and the fun. Then again, who in this audience would stop loving the music? No one, I'd guess, from the reaction it got. Black Valentine seemed to have a cheeky grin across its face and was good and bouncy like most of Hey! Hello!'s songs. Kids was next and it was one of the tunes on Too which I quite liked. Live it's way better and they played up to the parts about how kids will screw you up.
Lock For Rock ( And Other Cliches) has its' tongue in its cheek but, damn, it rocked like hell as well with some spot on harmonies on the chorus. They closed with Feral Days, all about it being OK to be addicted. Well at least for a while and this was an addictively good set that makes me think I might need to give the album another go.
After another short break it was time for Jim Jones & The Righteous Mind to take us on a trip into their southern preacher man rock and roll kingdom. It's certainly The Dream that they opened with, going full tilt but needing the guitars to be turned up a bit more. Til' It's All Gone blasted through us like they were ready to go on a rampage to get her out of their lives and they were not taking no for an answer.
They seemed to have dialled in some of the mariachi style antics they had last year but still they know how to get us all moving and going on what I think may have been Aldecide.
Either way we all knew they were telling us the truth as spectacularly as they could as Jim sang with all the passion he has always been renowned for.
They closed with the mesmeric Alpha Shit. It really is good and angry and it was aimed at the heart of all the alpha male bullshit going on in the world right now. The Righteous Mind are well worth checking out.
Next on was Dirtbox Disco who, for me at least, were playing a smaller venue than usual, but they still brought all their normal madness, opening with the rallying cry of All Right C'mon with Spunk Volcano as ever giving it large on his guitar and the place going nuts for them. Tragic Roundabout sounded as great as ever and got us ready to go nice and Deep.
They had everyone smiling by the time they played Standing In A Queue: as tongue in cheek as everything they do. But if you stand in the Queue long enough you'll need the next song. Yep, The Art Of Conversation which I'm sure they have plenty of witty banter to help it along even if they have to spell out how My Life Is Shit which - if you were wearing a rather large baby grow as the singer does - it may well be.
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Then they were getting into trouble with My Girlfriend's Best Friends sister who fancies them; the poor deluded woman. The band's theme song, We Are Dirtbox, went down a storm and had a huge amount of us singing along to it. My notes then lose the plot almost as much as Dirtbox sometimes do before they told us that I Don't Want To Go Out. Well why did you come to the Forum then?
They closed with almost-perfect anthem Let's Get Wasted which with the state of a lot of the audience was already job done as they left us all smiling and wanting some more.
Then it was finally time for the evening's main event, The Wildhearts who blasted off with Sick Of Drugs and well Ginger was certainly sick but it wasn't with drugs. Vanilla Radio was a great sing along party to get us all smiling. TV Tan flew by like they were a band on a mission and certainly CJ looked like he was if only it was to make sure the roadies got a nice big bucket on the stage.
Nita Nitro was an explosion of hard riffs and a great bass rumble from Jon Poole. Caffeine Bomb was like the rush you'd get from a triple espresso - speedy in the extreme. Everlong saw the pace drop a bit and Ginger looked like he might be lagging a bit but not enough to worry us at all.
Red Light Green Light seemed to be the sort of warning some of us might need to slow down but the way the songs were flying past that was unlikely to happen anytime soon. A Mazeltov Cocktail was a perfect suggestion even if by this point a few people were looking a touch green around the gills, the song still sounds great and got loads of people singing along to it. Well, this crowd sing along to almost everything to be honest.
Someone That Won't Let Me Go had just enough regret in it to work perfectly in time for Nothing Ever Changes But The Shoes wherein Ginger needed more than clean shoes as he managed to puke up into that bucket CJ asked for earlier. Remarkably, he didn't seem to miss a beat and Ginger then wished us all a messy Christmas as he had certainly got messy and was suffering with some sort of bug that we all hoped wasn't the Norovirus.
Still it was time for The Revolution Will Be Televised which is better than anyone televising Ginger hurling. Despite obviously not being well, he still sang it like he meant every last word and gave us a great guitar solo too. Yes he was certain that it was Stormy In The North and Calm In the South and it may well have been even if he was hoping his stomach was calm.
Weekend (5 Long Days) must have seemed it for Ginger but he didn't let on just giving it his all as they ramped things up to finish with Love You Till I Don't that certainly left us all wanting more and hoping for some special guests. To get the band back the audience sang "Don't Worry 'bout me" until they came back out.
For the encore they brought out a stool so that returning Wildheart Danny McCormack could join them on second bass. He hobbled onstage on crutches and sat down as they launched into a raucous take on Suckerpunch, which went down a total storm and led into My Baby is a Headfuck that was the full on riot you'd expect it to be.
Then Ginger totally lost the contents of his stomach quite spectacularly and was quipping between retches as he filled that bucket and then gamely sang Geordie In Wonderland as he must have felt anything but in wonderland. It was truly miraculous that he was playing on.
They then brought out Frank Turner to sing the final song of the night. Yep, I Wanna Go Where The People Go, which was a total sing and dance along as Ginger carried on playing guitar and trying to not look like he was about to hurl again. Damn, it was a great finish to a really brave performance as the show really did go on, no matter what.
On this form the Wildhearts are very much a must-see band as ever. This was yet another legendary Birthday bash and I look forward to going to a few more of these in the future.
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